How to Get Paid for Mentoring

To get paid for mentoring, package your judgment into one defined offer — an async written answer, a booked session, or an ongoing engagement — then set the scope, publish a price, and collect payment upfront before you deliver. Coach practitioners worldwide charged an average of $244 per one-hour session in 2022, according to the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study.

You can start without a course, an application, or a booking stack. If you are unsure whether it is reasonable to charge for guidance you previously gave away, can small creators charge for advice explains how to introduce that boundary, and how much do mentors charge covers rate ranges by experience level.

Key numbers for pricing and running a paid mentoring offer:

• The average fee for a one-hour coaching session was $244 worldwide and $272 in North America in 2022, according to the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary.
• The same International Coaching Federation study puts average hourly revenue recovered at $85 globally — about 35% of the $244 headline session fee — because unbilled hours are not paid (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary).
• See Brillay pricing for the current platform fee before you set your own price.
• Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US domestic card charge and a $15.00 dispute fee for each chargeback received (Stripe pricing).
• In the United States you owe self-employment tax once net earnings from self-employment reach $400, at a combined 15.3% rate (IRS Topic no. 554).

What does getting paid for mentoring mean?

Getting paid for mentoring means a mentee pays for your judgment applied to their situation — one private question answered, a portfolio reviewed, a call held, a plan written, or guidance across several weeks — instead of buying a pre-recorded product. Mentoring is priced per person because every engagement carries individual context and attention.

Paid guidance is an established, measurable market rather than a novelty. The International Coaching Federation's 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study counted 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide generating $5.34 billion in annual revenue, a 17% revenue increase since 2023 and a 13% increase in practitioner numbers.

Most paid mentors sell several formats rather than one. In the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study, 93% of coach practitioners said they offer services in addition to coaching — most often consulting (59%), training (58%), and facilitation (55%) — and offered an average of 2.8 additional services each.

You do not need a complete coaching business before testing demand. At minimum, define:

• Who the mentoring is for
• The question or outcome you can help with
• What the mentee receives
• How and when you will deliver it
• What the mentoring does not include
• The price and payment method
• Your cancellation or refund terms

What are the main ways to charge for mentoring?

Paid mentoring is sold in three formats: async advice, which is a written or recorded answer to one specific question; a booked session, which is a scheduled call, audit, or review; and an ongoing arrangement, which is recurring access over several weeks or months. Each is defined by scope, delivery time, and follow-up limits.

Which format is the best option for you?

• Choose async advice if you want the fastest test. It needs no calendar, no video call, and no rescheduling policy, so the only boundaries you must write are answer length, delivery time, and whether follow-ups are included.
• Choose a booked session if the problem needs conversation. Coaching sessions are the format the market prices most clearly: the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study reports an average fee of $244 per one-hour session globally in 2022.
• Choose an ongoing arrangement only after you have delivered both. Recurring access is the hardest scope to bound, and marketplace pricing reflects that: MentorCruise applies a minimum fee of $20 to a subscription mentoring plan but a flat fee of only $9 to $39 on a one-off session (MentorCruise Help Center, last updated 23 March 2026).

Async advice is usually the simplest format to test because it does not require calendar coordination. On Brillay, Paid Questions give the client one private typed question and one written reply.

Defined async deliverables such as a portfolio review, mini audit, written plan, or custom asset can be offered through Custom Work. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start. That same listing also spells out what the mentee receives, what they must provide, and what is excluded, so a review or written plan arrives as a defined order rather than an open-ended favour. For a fuller comparison, see async custom work vs. live calls.

An ongoing arrangement needs more structure than a one-off answer. Put the meeting frequency, messaging access, response window, included reviews, payment schedule, and termination process in writing before accepting payment. Scale the commitment to what a working mentor actually sustains: coach practitioners spent an average of 11.9 hours per week working as a coach and carried 12.2 active clients in 2022 (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary). Brillay’s Paid Questions and Custom Work are one-time purchases rather than memberships, so the engagement ends with the defined delivery instead of creating an obligation for the following month.

How should you price mentoring?

Price mentoring from the total work involved — intake, preparation, delivery, follow-up, and fees — rather than from the minutes spent talking. For a market anchor, the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study puts the average fee for a one-hour coaching session at $244 worldwide and $272 in North America for 2022.

What do published mentoring and coaching rates look like?

The single most useful benchmark for anyone pricing mentoring is the gap between the headline rate and what an hour of working time actually returns. The 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study reports a global average fee of $244 per one-hour coaching session in 2022 but an average hourly revenue recovered of just $85 — roughly 35% of the headline rate.

Source: 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary (International Coaching Federation, 2022 survey data).

Three sourced facts should shape your first price. First, the global average one-hour coaching fee rose 9% between 2019 and 2022, to $244 (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary). Second, more than one in two coach practitioners worldwide (53%) reported less than $30,000 in annual revenue from coaching in 2022, so a high hourly rate does not imply a high annual income (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary). Third, the average coach practitioner spent only 11.9 hours per week working as a coach and carried 12.2 active clients in 2022, which is why unbilled hours dominate the economics (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary).

The following figures are illustrative calculations, not market-rate benchmarks:

These examples show why scope matters. A $600 monthly arrangement is not equivalent to $200 per hour if it also includes unlimited messages, document reviews, and substantial preparation — and the ICF gap between a $244 headline fee and $85 of recovered hourly revenue shows how quickly unpaid hours erode a rate that looks generous on the checkout page.

A practical pricing process is:

1. Estimate the total work. Include intake, preparation, delivery, follow-up, administration, and payment fees.
2. Choose a minimum worthwhile rate. Decide what an hour of focused mentoring work must generate before you accept it.
3. Limit the scope. State the number of questions, session duration, revisions, and follow-ups.
4. Calculate the floor. Multiply the expected time by your minimum rate, then add the fees: on Brillay an 8% platform fee applies when a follower pays for work, and 5% applies to tips and goals, while Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful domestic card charge. A $150 async mentoring deliverable therefore nets about $133.35 before tax.
5. Test a clear price. Review demand, completion time, and mentee feedback after several paid engagements.

Editorial guidance: avoid launching at a price you already expect to resent. It is easier to offer a smaller, lower-priced async service than to sell open-ended access cheaply. This is professional judgment rather than a universal market benchmark.

For additional format examples, how career coaches make money explains how coaches combine offers.

How can you collect mentoring payments?

Collect mentoring payments either through an all-in-one creator platform or through a payment-and-scheduling setup you assemble yourself. Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. With an independent setup, you decide how payment, scheduling, and refunds work. Two costs always apply to paid card transactions: the platform's cut and card processing, which on Stripe is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful domestic charge.

Using Brillay

The Brillay workflow is:

1. Publish a mentoring offer. Describe the question, review, or async deliverable you provide. One written answer inside the window you set — no call, no calendar, no time zone. You answer between other work, so you can set a price for a short written answer rather than for a 30-minute slot.
2. Share one link. Direct followers from DMs, email, or your profile to one Brillay link that can show your Paid Questions, Custom Work, and other offers.
3. Clients pay upfront. Followers pay before you start; you deliver on your own time.
4. Deliver or decline.
5. Get paid through Stripe. Stripe sends money to your local bank through the connection you set up during Brillay onboarding.

Stripe processing is separate: 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US card charge. A mentor who sells a $150 async mentoring deliverable therefore receives about $133.35 after a $12.00 Brillay platform fee and a $4.65 Stripe processing fee.

Brillay has no application or follower minimum, clients can pay by card without creating an account, and creators in 41 payout countries can start without a course, membership, or monthly fee.

Using an independent stack

A non-platform setup can combine:

• Stripe Payment Links or another payment processor for upfront payment, at 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US card charge
• Calendly or another scheduler for live sessions; Calendly's free plan allows one event type and its Standard plan is $10 per seat per month billed annually
• Email, a form, or a shared document for intake
• A video-meeting tool for calls
• A written service agreement for substantial or ongoing engagements
• A spreadsheet or accounting system for transaction and expense records

An independent stack gives you more control over branding, scheduling, and data, but you own every failure path yourself: the mentee who books the wrong slot, the card that is declined, the refund request after a delivered session, and the chargeback. Chargebacks are the expensive one, because Stripe charges a $15.00 dispute received fee for each dispute and returns it only if you win. Brillay keeps the client's request, your promised scope, and your written reply together privately, so you have a record of what they bought and what you sent. Decide before you sell who handles scheduling problems, disputes, cancellations, refunds, missed sessions, and delivery records.

What policies and boundaries should you set?

Set eight terms before you accept a single mentoring payment: scope, delivery deadline, communication channel, follow-up, rescheduling, refunds, confidentiality, and the topics you will not advise on. Publish them on the checkout page, intake form, or written agreement rather than relying on a DM conversation, because a written term is what settles a dispute.

Define:

• Scope: The exact question, session, review, or deliverable included
• Delivery: The response window, meeting date, or completion deadline
• Communication: Where the client may contact you and how quickly you respond
• Follow-up: Whether clarification questions, revisions, or post-session notes are included
• Rescheduling: How much notice is required and what happens after a missed session
• Refunds: When a refund is available and whether completed work is refundable
• Confidentiality: How information, recordings, and examples clients send may be used
• Professional limits: Topics you will not advise on and outcomes you do not guarantee

Two of those terms carry hard costs, so write them with the fee schedule in front of you. If you refund a completed order, Brillay returns its platform fee, but Stripe’s processing fee is not returned; Stripe’s separate dispute fees follow its current pricing. A clear, published refund policy is cheaper than a card dispute.

Two findings from the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study should shape the confidentiality and qualification terms in particular. First, coach practitioners reported that 57% of their clients are sponsored rather than paying for themselves — up from 52% in 2019 — so the person paying is often not the person being coached (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary). Second, 85% of coach practitioners said they hold a certification or credential from a coaching organization, up from 69% in 2015, and 80% agreed that clients expect coaches to be certified (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study Executive Summary); if you hold no credential, say what your experience is instead of implying one.

For higher-value or ongoing arrangements, consider a written contract covering payment, scope, intellectual property, confidentiality, cancellation, and liability. Contract and consumer-protection requirements differ by location, so use qualified legal advice when needed.

What tax and record-keeping rules apply to mentoring income?

In the United States, mentoring income is self-employment income from the first dollar, and three official thresholds matter. You must pay self-employment tax if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more, at a combined rate of 15.3% made up of 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare (IRS Topic no. 554).

A payment platform is required to file Form 1099-K only when the gross amount of reportable payment transactions to a payee exceeds $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200, the threshold restored by the One, Big, Beautiful Bill (IRS newsroom, 23 October 2025). Mentoring income below that threshold is still taxable and still reportable, so do not treat the absence of a form as the absence of an obligation.

The IRS instructs small businesses to keep records for 3 years from the date the original return was filed, or 2 years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later (IRS, How long should I keep records?). Keep payment, platform-fee, processing-fee, refund, and expense records for every mentoring engagement. Thresholds and filing rules differ outside the United States, so check your own national tax authority and consult a tax professional about your jurisdiction.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need a large following to get paid for mentoring?

No. Mentoring is sold person by person, so one suitable mentee can purchase an offer without the audience scale required for advertising revenue. No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate.

Should you offer async mentoring or live calls?

Use async mentoring for focused questions that can be answered without real-time discussion, and use live sessions when the mentee needs back-and-forth conversation or dedicated time. Brillay supports async written questions and defined async deliverables — no live call, no scheduling. Marketplaces price formats differently too — MentorCruise charges a flat $9 to $39 fee on a one-off session versus a $20 minimum fee on a monthly plan.

How much of a Brillay mentoring payment do you keep?

Brillay has no monthly fee and charges an 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals. Stripe processing is separate, at 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US card transaction. On a $150 async mentoring deliverable, that works out to about $133.35 after a $12.00 platform fee and a $4.65 processing fee.

What is a realistic hourly rate for paid mentoring?

The 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study reports an average fee of $244 per one-hour coaching session globally in 2022, ranging from $277 in Western Europe and $272 in North America down to $114 in Latin America and the Caribbean. Treat that as a session-fee anchor, not take-home pay: the same study puts average hourly revenue recovered at $85 globally.

How do you tell people that free advice is now paid?

Use a brief, consistent response: explain that you have created a paid option for personalized guidance, state what it includes, and share the link. You do not need to justify the boundary or continue solving the problem in the DM. Can small creators charge for advice includes additional framing examples.

How can you get started?

Start with one narrowly defined offer — a paid async answer, an independently scheduled session, or a specific deliverable — priced against a real benchmark rather than a guess. The benchmark to price against is the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study figure of $244 for an average one-hour coaching session worldwide. Brillay lets creators start without a monthly fee, application, follower threshold, or pre-recorded course, and charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals (pricing and how it works), so a $150 async mentoring deliverable pays out about $133.35 after a $12.00 platform fee and a $4.65 Stripe processing fee.

Create your free Brillay page and price your first mentoring offer today.